


Fractured Promises

by sxrebonds



Series: Twisted Tales [1]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: AU, Abuse, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Character Death, Depression, Drug Use, F/M, Multi, Pre-War, Violence, and all the bounds of rainbows and fairy dust that comes with the peaky blinders cotton candy world, just a rollercoaster of angst and angst and more angst, no grace here ladies and gentlemen, season 3 time period
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:01:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26140792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sxrebonds/pseuds/sxrebonds
Summary: They were once young and full of hope.Then the cannons fired, and battered and broken souls became lost in the sea.And the promises that they told to each other under the caress of a candlelights glow, was lost forever.
Relationships: Arthur Shelby/Linda Shelby, Esme Shelby/John Shelby, Tommy Shelby/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Twisted Tales [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1898227
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	1. A Train's Whistle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Excelsior10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Excelsior10/gifts).



1915, Birmingham

She was running. Faster than she had ever ran before. Running, running, running, towards the smoke that danced in the breaking orange light of the morning frost. Black hair, as dark as the coal of a steam train, whipping wildly behind her, a half-buttoned blouse hanging untucked from her skirt, shoes latched so loosely on her feet they were surely going to cause her to fall straight into the crumbled cobblestones. But she didn’t care. She didn’t care for the stares she was getting off of Mrs Lindemann and her cluck of hens. She didn’t care of the promises she had made between his bedsheets in the midst of the afterglow. She didn’t care for the purple bruises, or the crimson cuts she could gain from one unsteady tumble. She didn’t care for any of it. Any of it, at all. All she could think of, was getting there on time. It was set to leave at 7:42 am. It was currently 7:37. It had been a last minute decision. One she hadn’t really thought too heavily on, but then she saw the yellow slip on her kitchen table, and the next thing she knew, she was speeding down the streets of Watery Lane, looking like she had been caught in some sort of torrential rain storm sent from Hell. Not exactly the parting image she had hoped to leave stained on his mind for all those lonely nights sullied in mud, but desperate circumstances call for desperate measures. And she was. Desperate, that is. For just one more. One more look, one more word, one more kiss. That’s all she wanted, just one more. 

And maybe she was selfish, going against his final wishes like this. But she never has been very good at keeping her promises, and he knows that. He knows everything about her, whether he would like to admit that or not. So he should have expected one last act of defiance. And if he hadn’t, well, he will surely be in for a surprise soon enough. 

She glanced down at her father’s golden watch. 7:39. 

She hurried forward, spotting the quaint little train station on the corner of Anderson Road, the white pearly gates calling out to her like a whispering lover would. So she stumbled onto the platform flooded with a sea of men in muddy greens, and stood onto the tips of her toes, shaking her head side to side in hopes of spotting the familiar sharp lines of his cheeks, and those deep cornflower blue eyes that continue to imprison her heart. 

“Liz?” She heard her name coming from his lips, low and deep, her feet already whirling themselves in his direction, just to come face to face with more blockades of sullen soldiers. 

“Tommy!” She shouted out into the void helplessly. 

Then the sea of men parted and out of the other end, was her Tommy jogging towards her, clad in the same skin of muddy green but making it look so much more than it was. Her smile cracking her face in two, as she ran to meet him, jumping into his arms before he had the time to steady himself, making him wobble slightly before he steadied them both, by stepping back with one leg. And she felt his harsh breath tickle the skin by the nape of her neck instantly, one of his calloused hands tangling into the knotted mess of her dark mane while the other laid on the delicate dip of her back, pressing her, holding her against him in a delicious sort of way that made her want to cry. 

It quite possibly that she already was. A few silent traitors slipping from the corners before she had given them the permission to. Unable to stop their followers as her feet were settled back onto solid ground and his hands were working their way up to cup her wet cheeks, pulling her face to meet his marbled gaze. He seemed to soften as he caught sight of the tears, wiping them away with his thumb. “What happened to that promise, eh?” He joked, and he rarely ever joked, which just made everything worse. 

“You can shove your promises, Thomas Shelby.” She replied, weakly hitting her fist against his chest, sniffling. 

And now he was smiling. For fuck sake, this man is trying to kill her. “That what you came all this way to tell me?” His hand smoothing down her wild hair. “That I can shove my promises? Thought you would want our parting words to be a bit more romantic.” He tutted his head off to the side with an indescribable smirk on his frustratingly perfect lips. Because that is what he is; utterly perfect, in the most annoying and inconceivable ways. 

“I thought memorable would be a better way to go.” She cracked with a hollow laugh, using the back of her hand to wipe her face of any remaining streaks, and there was a brief momentary horrifying thought on how awful she surely must look in comparison. The rag dolls, that penniless little girls, drag through dirty puddles probably looking more attractive than she does, with her red puffy complexion to match the birds nest currently sitting on top of her head.

“Was last night not good enough for you?” He teased, catching her chin in his fingers before she could duck her head from view. “Just couldn’t do what I ask of you. Not once.” 

Elizabeth scoffed to stop the sobs bubbling up in her throat. “And inflate your ego. You’re already much too arrogant for your own good. Birmingham wouldn’t be able to house a head as big as yours, if not for me.” 

He didn’t roll his eyes. He always rolls his eyes at her wit. Fuck. He was right, this was a mistake. “You know, most send offs, aren’t so insulting.” 

Refusing to look at those deep swirling vortex’s of blue, Elizabeth looked down to his muddy green tie, flattening it out with shaky fingers. “Well you chose me Thomas Shelby, I’m your curse now.” She whispered, and she didn’t mean to whisper, but whatever strength she had thought she had left, was dwindling with each unnerving second. 

“A blessed fucking curse, you are.” 

She physically had to close her eyes at the rolling thunder of his voice. It was too much. It was all too much. And the tears were falling like the pour of a whiskey now, rolling down her skin and landing on his pristine uniform in darkened splotches. He didn’t seem to mind though, his hands still running through her hair, and down her cheeks, over and over again. And she wished he wouldn’t. But hoped he would never stop. That if she just kept her eyes closed, then maybe, maybe, the world would stop spinning in continuous images and would instead repeat in stagnant loops of this one singular moment for the rest of eternity. She deserved that, at least. She deserved that little mercy. He deserved it too. 

But then that noise came. 

That screech of a train’s whistle - a siren’s scream, a banshee’s warning - that made her ears bleed and her eyes snap open. 

“Tommy-“

He caught her in his arms before the frantic buzzing rattling around in her veins could send her jumping up in the air like a frightened cat, forcing her eyes to meet his, and away from the bustling soldiers moving behind those steel doors. “Hey, hey, d’you remember the promise I made to you? Hm?” He asked her, and she just barely told herself to nod, it being a bit more of a spasm of the nerves rather than a nod. “I don’t fucking break my promises, alright. I will come back to you. I will marry you. No fucking Germans are gonna change that.” 

Tommy often spoke with such a degree of passion and intensity that you were inclined to believe whatever bullshit he might be sprouting, there being no other choice, it was a credence, a decree that you found yourself agreeing to whilst lost in the rapture of his never-ending potency. But now, a rush of water as cold as ice washed down Elizabeth’s spine as she listened to his words...because she didn’t believe him. For whatever reason, for whatever power, Elizabeth didn’t believe the words coming from Tommy’s mouth, and that terrified her more than any horrid tale of the Great War that they were getting from the front. 

He saw it in her eyes too, that she didn’t believe him. But he didn’t say anything, just rested his forehead on hers and said, “Tell me, one last time.”

So Elizabeth brought her fingers up to trace the clenched fragments of his jaw cracking his skin in two, twisting her lips in what she hoped was a smile, and said, “I love you, Thomas Shelby.” 

And his lips were on hers before the last syllable had fully left the tip of her tongue. Strong and striking, kissing her as if it was the last time he would ever get the chance. And it hurt. So fucking much. Like a few hundred tiny blades scratching against the surface of her skin until it was rubbed raw and exposed for the world to see. But, pain was a welcome reminder that you were alive, and Elizabeth needed that at this moment. She needed to know that she was alive, that he was alive, that John and Arthur waiting not so patiently in the background were both alive. So she kissed him back, desperate and unforgiving, pleading to whatever God that wasn’t listening that this wouldn’t be the last time. 

But then he was ripping himself away from her, untangling their limbs, leaving her scorched and burned, and storming off towards the harsh whistle of the train, all in one strangled breath. Not turning back to the spot she remained frozen to. Instead pushing past the floating bodies and leaping into the carriage, with his brothers fighting to keep up. No final words of comfort. No last act. All she wanted was one more. Just one more. But he didn’t give it to her. Didn’t even turn to look back. 

Elizabeth understood why, he had told her as much bathed in last night’s candlelight, but that didn’t stop the pain. It blossoming through her chest with wings covered in thorns, shattering her rib cage, and tearing her heart until she felt as if she was choking on the blood. Because the impulse to come to this train station, came from Tommy’s words, words that she had hoped would ring true but the train was already leaving and he hadn’t jumped off yet, he wasn’t coming to take her away on Black Clover, he was sitting, lent over with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, passing by in a blur of muddy green. 

"I don’t want you there” he said, while brushing over the cupid’s bow of her swollen lips. “If I see you standing on that fucking platform, Liz, I won’t make it out that fucking station. I’ll steal you away to Charlie’s yard, take that black beauty you love so much, and ride off somewhere no one will find us. You can’t be there, Liz. Promise me.” 

He was gone. The train was gone. But she was still here.

The same routine had happened with her father. They were once together, he got on the train, she stood on the platform, she watched him go. 

He died two weeks later from the spoils of infection on a putrid cut. At least, that was what was written on her father’s little yellow slip. Elizabeth was left to wonder...what was Tommy’s little yellow slip going to read? 


	2. Veins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elizabeth contemplates love

1915, Birmingham

Elizabeth didn't know at what age she fell in love with Thomas Shelby. She had tried to pinpoint it to an exact date, went over the key moments where she thought that _that_ was the first time she felt butterflies beating so hard in her stomach that they travelled all the way up into her throat. But every time she happened upon a timestamp in history, her brain brought up a new and world-tilting moment that forced her to reconsider.

It's been a mystery Elizabeth has been trying to figure out for the past three weeks now, four on Thursday. Funnily enough, the same amount of time since the man in question hopped on a train and blurred into a flurry of muddy greens. Maybe there was a connection. Maybe not.

But with all this thought that Elizabeth had dedicated to figuring out this one answer, she quickly realised something. Possibly something that was quite obvious to others, but then again, Elizabeth never claimed she was the smartest, more so of a slow learner if she was to give it a title. Love has different types. There is the one you're taught, the one you learn and the one that blinds you.

Now, saying that Tommy blinded her may be just slightly too ironic and misleading to say the least. He very well didn't take his stitched cap and slice her face up into a bunch of pretty red ribbons. No, definitely not 'blinded' in that sense. And not in the way that it was rather a surprise, it may have been quite predictable actually. The little sister's best friend, the girl of the family the Shelby's grew up with, becoming enamoured by the tall(er) charming older brother with the eyes that looked like they had been painted on rather than actualised. Yeah, predictable. No, the reason that this was the love that blinded Elizabeth, knocked her to her knees. Was because of the sheer brutal force of it all.

You're taught love by your parents, if you're lucky, sometimes even if you're not. Taught that these people that you are surrounded with, are the people you should feel a bottomless pit of appreciation for. Taught that you are to care for them at the lowest points, as well as their highest. Taught that you are to love them even when you hate them. Taught that no matter the physical distance or emotional blockades that you form, these are the people that you should say you love. And that certainly isn't a situation that translates to everybody. There are the abandoned and lost who didn't have a 'family' to teach them the concept, didn't have someone to tell them that this is the way the world works. But sometimes that is for the best, because as we are all fashioned with this sense of loyalty, a loyalty that we think we can pass onto others like we have passed onto our family, we learn we can't. Because this level of forgiveness and tolerance can't extend onto the people that have a choice to walk away. And most of the times, they do walk away.

So when you're old enough and you decide to try and give your heart away to someone, ignoring the warning signs and all the reasons why the pieces just aren't fitting correctly, you realise that love is not something that is found easily. There are the people that give up and speak the words to the person sitting opposite of them, simply because the quest of going out and searching for _that_ person through the sea of _not-that_ persons is too daunting or too tiring, or the fear of never finding it weighs heavily down on their chest and ties them down to a plain face with a plain future. But it's all worth nothing in the end.

However, as Elizabeth sits in the rotting field of daisies, she decided that she would have much rather resigned herself to that sort of fate. Rather than the dank pit of heartbreak she finds herself drowning in.

Because when that day came, whenever exactly that was, and she was cursed with the fact of knowing that she was completely irreversibly in love with this man, Elizabeth felt this sort of shift in her. It was like whatever sort of innate predisposition for self-preservation you have in yourself had simply vanished. Like she was out in the open to this threatening harm and no longer had any protection to shield herself from it. No longer wanted it. Because being in love with Thomas Shelby was like having your veins exposed. Like you no longer had this layer of skin, and rather the red and blue and purple veins and arteries and whatever else, were just lying there for him to see. And he was holding a knife. A sharp gleaming edge that could easily swipe at any number of things. And that would be it.

Elizabeth was left to wonder if that feeling would ever go away. Wondered if she ever wanted it to.

It had been three weeks, four on Thursday, since he's been gone. And all Elizabeth has to do is wait. And think.

Her father would tell her that she was being ridiculous. That spending days, weeks, months or her life worrying over someone else's life was about as pointless and redundant as you could make it. But, they would both know that he was talking a load of horse shit. Because he was just like her, a hopeless romantic, emphasis on the word hopeless. And that he would, and quite literally has done, throw away fortunes and titles and the world's riches just for the sake of a girl that smiles at him _just_ the right way.

You see her father is Alister Renly. _Was_. The only born son of Margaret and Charles Renly. Disowned and disallowed from the family riches for the treasonous act of falling in love with a woman who wasn’t born with pearls around her neck. Was told that he was to choose between his heart and his head. So, without delay, he abandoned it all. Took his girl, the one with the dark curls the colour of oozing ink, to a chapel on the side of some gravel road they were travelling on and married her with tears in his eyes. Tears not for the things that he had lost, but more for what he had gained. Because her mother held the knife, just like Tommy does. And just like Elizabeth, her father had welcomed the danger.

But that doesn't matter much anymore. All of it. Because he was dead now. Buried under some mud, on foreign land with nothing but probably some wilted flowers resting over the fresh soil. Maybe. Or maybe they didn't have the time, and rather he was just left to rot. Because that is what killed him after all. One cut, and the rot that infested him. Elizabeth didn't even know if it was the Germans that gave him the cut in the first place, or rather if it was just some consequence of living under the barracks, down in the tunnels. But that also didn't matter much anymore. Why would it? He's still dead. Time and history forgetting him while he stays burned in Elizabeth's mind; his face, his smile, those weird little idiocies that always had her mother rolling her eyes and her giggling softly at the kitchen table.

She keeps his yellow slip in the pocket of her worn dress, clutches it between her fingers when she thinks of him. Also, when she thinks of Tommy. But really, that's all she thinks about anymore. So the yellow slip was rather faded now, the words blurring together in black splotches resembling nothing, and yet everything all at once. She barely gets any sleep nowadays because of it. And she could see people getting worried. Ada was looking at her more and more with her sad Shelby eyes, that blue-grey shade that brought more ice to her bones than the chill the wind brought every time it raged. But that just brought her more guilt, because Ada already had three boys to worry about, she didn't need a lovesick girl mopping around about _her_ brother to add to the list.

So Elizabeth likes to escape a lot, hide up in the fields behind the towers and factories that keep Birmingham from the sun. And she would go to the rows and rows of daisy fields that he would take her to, the same place they would go so that he could steal some kisses from her giving needy lips, the same place he would tell her about his many many plans. Because that's just another thing that had her falling. Falling falling falling into the deep depths of Thomas Shelby's sticky indulge.

Because her Tommy had these eyes that held the world. Indescribable eyes. They were bewitching and menacing, and so filled with wondrous plans that had them all crawling out from the black coal clouds they were born under and into the ivory towers with bricks made of gold. And Tommy had that power to convince you of anything. So, she believed him, believed _in_ him, that he would do it. Somehow, someway, he would do it, whatever _it_ was. But he was in the tunnels now, hiding from the sun the same way Birmingham does, so that didn't really matter much anymore. 

She was crying now. Or maybe she hadn't stopped since he got on the train. It's hard to tell really.

The snort of her horse told her that another person was coming, but Elizabeth didn't react, just kept staring out into the distance with her arms stretched out behind her to keep her balanced. Whatever was coming couldn't be any worse than what has already passed, so Elizabeth wasn't worried. Or curious. Whatever it is, that is meant to be the correct emotion she should be feeling here. Perhaps it was the post, delivering another yellow slip.

The newcomer sat wordlessly beside her, brought her knees up to her chest and hugged them tightly with her arms, shaky fingers clutching onto the frayed edges of her sleeves.

Most people would describe her mother as beautiful, plenty of broken men, that had been lying in the creaky beds, calling her their angel as she tended to their wounds and soothed their pain with her soft dewdrop smiles. Elizabeth wouldn't deny that the same sentiment exists to this day, but she could see the shift in her mother that happened just that month ago, a similar shift that happens when you fall in love, just that more excruciatingly painful.

Her wild curls seemed rather tired, drooping sadly down her back. Her rosy cheeks more of a similar shade to the daisies they were sitting in, cracked with new lines that Elizabeth hadn't quite seen before. And her eyes sat in the hollows of her sockets, large black/purple streaks resting under them in a vivid violence to the rest of the blank canvas. It made Elizabeth reconsider who it was that was really holding the knife when it came to her parents.

"Polly came over." She began as they both continued staring out into the distance. "Said she hasn't seen you for a few days."

Elizabeth didn't say anything. Mainly because there wasn't anything to say to that sort of statement. It's true. She hasn't. 

"I told her you're grieving." Her mother coughed into her handkerchief. Rather violently Elizabeth would admit, but maybe that word felt as poisonous to say as it did for her to hear it. Strange that. Why having a word attached to something makes it that much more unbearable.

"And what did she say?" Elizabeth asked, her voice coming out slightly worn and strained from the lack of use. She doesn't speak much nowadays. Something Tommy would say is a miracle, if he were here. But he isn't.

"She told me to make sure that all you're doing is grieving the dead. And not the living as well." Elizabeth might have been offended at seeming so transparent with her feelings, but seeming as those words came from Polly, and there wasn't a thing her or Ada have been able to hide from her ever since they had learnt what is was to lie, the brief tear in her ego was quickly patched up with sorrow again. And maybe the tears were falling down her cheeks like crystal rain but she didn't move her hand to wash them away because she was sure that more would only fall to replace the ones that were lost. Like soldiers in a war.

Her mother kept staring at the horizon that was starting to bleed orange, not even flinching at the severity of her own (Polly's) words, well except for the tremors that rattled her limbs, but they seemed to be a reoccurring trait in her mother recently. Her hands slowly let go of herself however, one reaching out to behind them both where Elizabeth's fists were clenched into the stems of daisies, and gently wrestled it out of the ground and into her hold. They then sat there for a while longer, until the sky began to descend into the shades of purple and blue similar to bruises without either of them talking. An occasional sniff or a throaty cough the only thing that left their lips.

"What does it feel like?" Elizabeth finally asked, a question she didn't want an answer for. But her mother always did tell her it's good to be prepared.

"Like you've gone with them." She responded with a sigh. "But Polly's right. Your father may be dead," She cleared her throat quickly. "However, that doesn't mean that Thomas will surely follow. He's a stubborn boy, always has been. And he made you a promise didn't he?" 

"I don't think Germans much care for promises." And if Elizabeth's grip grew slightly more fierce on her mother's poor hand, she didn't show any kind of reaction

"Maybe not. But you must hold onto hope Betty. It is the only thing in life we can really choose. Everything else is out of our hands." Her mother always spoke with this air of wisdom, like she had lived many more years than she actually had. Alister had told Elizabeth once, after one too many whiskeys, that she lived the lives of the people she meets. Listened to those broken men and their sad stories and retained their memories like they were her own, as if she was lightening their burden somehow. Like she was picking out the bad seeds burrowed in their memory and storing them in her mind instead, for safekeeping. Elizabeth always thought it was strange, heartbreaking really. Why would anyone willingly accept sorrow?

She understands now. Tommy made her understand.

"Have you wrote him?" She asked next, maybe finally growing impatient with the silence.

"Yes. Three times. I'm writing the fourth."

"Has he wrote you back?" The horizon was starting to dissolve into a rich violet with hues of a navy blue darkening the world. Everything blue, brought her back to him, but it was never quite right, and that was increasingly frustrating.

"Once. But he explained that it would be hard to get letters back for a while. They are constantly moving, he wrote." Her voice was beginning to sound completely detached to what she remembered it sounding like before. But everything was different before.

"That sounds right." Her mother replied, rather distant. And all Elizabeth could think of was, _does it? What exactly sounds right about this? Her father was dead. And he could be next._

She didn't say that though. She hadn't said that her father was dead out loud yet. Only in her head. Alongside the rest of her thoughts.

"I'll go to the shop tomorrow. To see Polly and Ada. I also hear that John's Martha is having a rather hard time at the moment, I can help her too." Elizabeth said, to appease her mother. Or Polly. Or whoever. Even though she didn't quite know if she could help, her presence was beginning to feel more and more of a burden than anything else. But Polly was dropping hints, which was the usual lead up to an order, so Elizabeth thought it best to skip that step altogether.

Her mother turned to look at her then, her dark onyx eyes being only barely visible in the inky sky, but they were still there, and for some reason, when Elizabeth locked onto them, the rain that had been dripping out her eyes turned to rivers, and she collapsed into her mother's chest, hands clutching faded fabric while shaky limbs held her tight, rocking her back and forth as if she were an infant. And she wished she was. She wanted to do it all again, so she could make different choices. So she could convince her father to never board that train. So she could decide not to fall in love with a man so intoxicating that made her lose her instinct of survival. But she knew. She knew she would never change. Not really. And that only made the cries more forceful, more painful. And her mother just continued to stroke her tangled hair, letting out the occasional shh past her hushed lips.

"It's ok, my sweet girl, it's ok. I'm here. _Always_." Her mother made her a promise in that moment. Just like her father did when he boarded that train. Just like Tommy did, tangled up in his bedsheets and her.

Her father broke his promise nearly 2 months ago. In 3 weeks time, her mother will break that too. And she always did say that bad things come in threes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. To ANYONE who read the first chapter all those months ago when I first published this, i'm sorry for this huge wait. I received so many lovely messages telling me to continue this story, and I really really have wanted to, but life happened so yeah, I think that explains everything that needs to explain. Anyway, ANOTHER, short chapter which normally is not my style, but this is the basis that we all most go through to understand the agonising angst of heartbreaking torture of a time that I'm cooking up over hear. Cause let's be honest, NO ONE, watches Peaky with the intentions of having a rainbows and unicorns kind of time, right? So tell me what you think, tell me what it is of Elizabeth and Tommy you want to know, and who knows maybe some of these questions will be answered.... You're welcome for the cliffhangers :)

**Author's Note:**

> OK.... So I have had this idea in my head for MONTHS and I'm finally deciding to go ahead and do it. This is going to be a completely AU story that I hope everyone is going to like because I honestly don't know what I'm doing yet and the only reason I'm gonna do this is if people actually want it. SO....does anyone actually want this or should I just turn back and run?


End file.
